Detecting changes of capacitance is used for many applications such as level detection, proximity detection, touch keys, etc. There are various ways of detecting changes of capacitance, for example one is by using an oscillator. The oscillator may be a relaxation oscillator comprising a sensor capacitor in combination with other frequency determining components to generate a frequency. The other components, e.g., inductors, resistors, current sources, etc., used in the oscillator are assumed to be stable. The relaxation oscillator also uses a window comparator. The oscillation frequency is determined by the sensor capacitor, current value and the threshold voltages of the window comparator. When the capacitance of the sensor capacitor changes value, the frequency of the relaxation oscillator changes accordingly.
There are issues with using a relaxation oscillator in this way to detect changes in capacitance. One issue is that the measurement of a frequency requires some kind of reference time base. To detect small changes in capacitance, which is often the case, the reference, time base must be very stable and may require the use of a resonator or crystal in the reference time base measurement circuit so as to differentiate the small changes in frequency. An inexpensive internal resistor-capacitor oscillator does not have sufficient stability in this type of capacitance change detection circuit.
Another issue when using the relaxation oscillator for detection of changes in capacitance is the non-ideal behavior of the relaxation oscillator circuit. The window size of the comparator may change with temperature and operating voltage. The same is true for the currents set either by a resistor or a current source/sink.
The relaxation oscillator also generates electrical noise. This electrical noise can be reduced by making the sensor capacitor and the voltage amplitude on this capacitor as small as possible. Also since the waveform signal of the relaxation oscillator is triangular or close to being triangular shaped, it is rich in harmonics (multiples of the fundamental frequency). The fundamental and harmonics may present an electro-magnetic interference (EMI) problem.
Yet another issue with the relaxation oscillator is its sensitivity to external noise The relaxation oscillator has high impedance circuits by design, and may easily frequency synchronize to external signals.
The oscillator may be an inductor-capacitor (LC) oscillator, where the oscillator frequency depends partly upon the capacitance of the sensor capacitor. The LC oscillator has similar issues as the relaxation oscillator except that the oscillator frequency waveform is substantially sinusoidal, thus containing fewer and lower level harmonics than the relaxation oscillator. A stable time-base is still required, however, and the component costs will increase because of the required inductor and a more complicated oscillator circuit.
Another way of detecting changes of capacitance is by using a charge transfer technique. The sensor capacitor is charged with a voltage, and then the voltage, charge is transferred to an integrator which may be a larger value capacitor, or a more sophisticated circuit like an operational amplifier connected as an integrator. After a certain number of charge transfers the voltage on an integration capacitor of the integrator is determined which gives an indication of the ratio between the sensor capacitor (unknown capacitance) and the integration capacitor (known and stable capacitance value). Also instead of determining the voltage on the capacitor after a certain number of charge transfers, a continuous measurement may be implemented using charge balancing techniques.
Yet another way of detecting changes of capacitance is by using a current source to charge the sensor capacitor (unknown capacitance) and measure the time to reach a certain voltage or measure the reached voltage after a certain time period. To stay in “measurable” times for the “time at voltage” measurement or “settable” times for the “voltage at, time” measurement, the charging current becomes very low. The current source creates the same component stability issues as mentioned for the relaxation oscillator. These charge transfer techniques all require the use of an external capacitor as an, integrator. The oscillator circuits described hereinabove require specialized oscillator circuits and high stability time bases.